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There is great deal of truth in Chellany's colomn. And difficult to dismiss completely. I have been living in N.America over half century and some years in USA. I believe US mindset, culture, history and behaviour must be viewed as complex and multi-faceted ones. It can be viewed and praised for its generosity, helping others if necessary with blood, etc. but then its some actions can not be justified on ethical and moral grounds issues. Despite all its good things, it has its quota of " Ugly Americans". (Remember the late American Marlon Brando!) and arrogant ass-holes in all levels do society.
Should America be held to a higher moral standard or not depends on circumstances.

Unilateralism, when it is more procedural, seems to be less costly, but those that are substantive are associated with high costs. The author has referred to both types; the real question is how do the benefits of a substantive unilateral policy outweigh the general costs that lack of adjustments in the economic and political sphere would usher. The counter-balancing constraint no more being present is a good reason that leads many to the logical plateau of unilateralism, while efficiency gains from institutional cooperation in the international arena does not give very powerful examples to ponder.

A couple of comments on the example of procedural unilateralism that Mr. Chellaney cited, leaves a sobering thought that even procedural unilateralism could lead to dissonance of the highest order, as is evident in the case of the Indian diplomat, with her limited immunity.

"The strong do what they wish and the weak accept what they must." - Thucydides

On the one hand, yes, major powers have always shaped the system and played by their own rules - or lack of rules. In many cases it is well worth having a hegemon who cheats once in a while but generally enforces the norms that maintain the public good. On the other hand, when the rule enforcers start cheating too much, all semblance of order breaks down. I think Professor Chellany's implicit argument is that we may be approaching that tipping point. I think he's spot on, although the issue is, of course, more complex than can be discussed in a brief column.

The false equivalency here is disturbing. China has territorial disputes with its neighbors. This is troubling, but the comparison with the US is laughable. The US launches illegal wars halfway across the globe killing millions of people in the Middle East and SE Asia. And then there's the torture, the death squads, the complicity with drug traffickers, assassinations, the overthrows, the aiding and abetting of financial high crimes, the support for jihadis, etc. etc.

In the words of Ronald Reagan(if am nt wrong). When the world is not unilateral anymore/ in a multilateral era, the world has to run by strict multilateral rules and regulations. This is non-negotiable. If countries fail to do that, there would be serious concerns. Yes, the diplomats issue may be he was biased, but that is what is the whole point. US is biased wherever it's citizens are and interprets the laws liberally. But that's not the case with weaker countries, they can't ensure the implementation of the laws. The strong states don't let this happen, if this continues, there comes a stage where no country would want to implement. Results would be unimaginable, taking the world a few decades backwards!

An insightful and well argued piece. The U.S. and China have more in common than many think, including on how they approach international law. They seek to hold other states to international rules while remaining unconstrained by those rules. It is thus no surprise that they often keep each other in the loop on their moves in regional conflicts, some of them fuelled by the arms and support these powers provide.

The Indian diplomat, as the article points out, did not have full diplomatic immunity. But she had limited diplomatic immunity as a consular official. The issue in this case was not was not immunity but inviolability, as guaranteed by the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. That inviolability was breached when over a petty labour dispute, the diplomat was arrested, strip-searched and cavity-searched (including vaginal and anal cavity search), handcuffed, and kept in a cell with drug addicts and prostitutes. Mr. Ivan Yu, you don't seem surprised by this mistreatment because your country China does worse things.

The Indian diplomat's offense has nothing to do with her official capacity and the treatment she received, harsh or not, is consistent with the prevailing practice in the US.
This is an isolated case and has nothing to do with whether US or China uses their power to manipulate international law.

While Professor Chellaney's observations are correct and well-documented, they miss two fundamentals:

Firstly, the issues are not limited to the national level, but proceed--as all things in Nature--as a fractal down to individual human relationships in families, communities, and the business world. Missing this dimension is missing everything, because all with with human ego (i.e., All) are guilty and all are victims, to varying degrees.

Secondly, while this system of interlocking egos is not dealt with on the atomic level so to speak, all legalisms will be broken for it will always be a matter of "who guards the guardians," rendering such articles as these interesting academic theories on ethics for the discussion of scholars, or those who can make some personal political use of them--but nothing significantly real will arise.

However, Nature itself--at least its inevitable mathematics--is becoming a game changer. For the pressures to the unstoppable globalization, the human global system that is heading into the loggerhead of human egoistic entropy, is a direct trip into chaos. Chaos can lead to Murphy's law and catastrophe. or if done right, can lead to exactly the kind of distributed sense, communication, and control that the article implies as ideal--but more. because this will not be a lateral human law but a fractal natural law. In other words, we must support the nature of this phenomenon rather than trying to outsmart its evermore intricate complexities. They are far surpassing the abilities of separate stake holders--national, corporate, provincial, communal, or individual, to handle. This "need" for developing human relationships, integral education for us to naturally integrate into this complex system, and to bring about the global mutual responsibility to make it happen--is a real need. It is not one party vs. another, or politics. It is the need for every part of the automobile to be maintained, develped, and utilitzed it stop dead in the rainy wilderness and rust (or just blowup from overheating).

So let us not focus on endless laws, treaties, and economic systems depending upon simplistic model and "good faith." Rather educate to the desperate need everyone and every entity will have to see the whole system stays afloat to safely reach the shore of the 22nd century.

I don't think there is such a thing as "rogue state".
What we have is domination as a result of our inherently self-calculating, egoistic nature.
And we had domination all through human history, when individuals, nations who were stronger than others dominated those others in any way they could.
Today we seemingly have democracy, international laws, UN, agreements, but in truth it is still "stronger dominates the weaker".
The recent movie "Cloud Atlas" called this "truth", the stronger feasting on the weak, regardless of the age, external settings, masks we try to cover this truth with.
What is changing today is that as we evolved into a globally interconnected and interdependent human system, we started an equalization process.
In a global, integral system there cannot be dominant forces, "global leaders", "global policemen", a global, integral system sooner or later balances itself and all parts, large and small become intertwined cogwheels, working mutually together, complementing each other.
This year we witnessed how the previously dominant "Anglo-Saxon" axis lost its unique leading position, but there will be no other "leaders" taking over as the system does not allow it.
Now we can fight this, try to resist, but here we are up against forces that are much superior to human society, we are part of the natural system and the laws of the system are binding.
Or we can learn and understand the system and its laws and start adapting consciously, and fortunately there are a lot of signs lately that "leaders" and the public alike want to follow the conscious adaptation rather than the forced one.

See also:

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A Saudi prince has been revealed to be the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," for which he spent $450.3 million. Had he given the money to the poor, as the subject of the painting instructed another rich man, he could have restored eyesight to nine million people, or enabled 13 million families to grow 50% more food.

While many people believe that technological progress and job destruction are accelerating dramatically, there is no evidence of either trend. In reality, total factor productivity, the best summary measure of the pace of technical change, has been stagnating since 2005 in the US and across the advanced-country world.

The Bollywood film Padmavati has inspired heated debate, hysterical threats of violence, and a ban in four states governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – all before its release. The tolerance that once accompanied India’s remarkable diversity is wearing thin these days.

The Hungarian government has released the results of its "national consultation" on what it calls the "Soros Plan" to flood the country with Muslim migrants and refugees. But no such plan exists, only a taxpayer-funded propaganda campaign to help a corrupt administration deflect attention from its failure to fulfill Hungarians’ aspirations.

French President Emmanuel Macron wants European leaders to appoint a eurozone finance minister as a way to ensure the single currency's long-term viability. But would it work, and, more fundamentally, is it necessary?

The US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel comes in defiance of overwhelming global opposition. The message is clear: the Trump administration is determined to dictate the Israeli version of peace with the Palestinians, rather than to mediate an equitable agreement between the two sides.